


Administrative Requirements for Magical Artifact Acquisition and Transfer

by iimpavid, It_MightBe_Love



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Dragons, Epistolary, Familiars, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Magical Artifacts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_MightBe_Love/pseuds/It_MightBe_Love
Summary: His hands still shake.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Administrative Requirements for Magical Artifact Acquisition and Transfer

**Author's Note:**

> The backlog of fic posting continued although I’ll try a little harder not to spam tags today. 
> 
> More or less unbeta'd, so be nice.

Moving to Greenwich Village isn’t the end of the world... Although swapping a penthouse for a mausoleum filled with museum pieces and windows that open onto other parts of the globe is less than ideal.

Stephen Strange prefers the familiar, so sue him. After the last few years he thinks he’s entitled to mourn the loss of his entire fortune to an inadequate series of surgeons, experimental medical techniques, and a trip to Nepal followed by having to literally _save the dimension_ \-- when all he’d asked for was to have steady hands again. The reality-warping sorcery is very nearly worth the cost and his favorite grocery will make an exception to deliver his produce this far South for a small additional fee.

His hands still shake.

Among the less-glamorous duties of “Master” Sorcerer of New York (could they have chosen a clunkier title?) is the collection and curation of the aforementioned museum pieces. Much like his Cloak-- in all of it’s snarky, mobile glory-- these various knickknacks, weapons, and armors will come into life of their own when the right sorcerer is near them. Until then, they’re kept in tidy displays in the New York Sanctuary— only occasionally to be trotted out before students at Kamar-Taj to see if any of them stick. Compared to the minimalism of his (dearly missed) penthouse, the neatly-arranged clutter of ancient history is stifling.

Not to mention the fact that the Cloak won’t stop following him.

He tries, desperately, to go about his daily life ignoring it but somehow the fabric monstrosity has learned to pick the lock on his wardrobe from the inside. Of course it’s not enough to settle onto his shoulders while he’s wandering about with his morning coffee and a neurological consult file in hand, no, it hovers three feet to his left looking like a kicked puppy because he’d been cruel enough to lock it up. Stephen does the sensible thing: braces himself for the inevitable onslaught of grade school _Dr. Strange_ jokes and wears the cape everywhere. With the collar popped, of course. 

_When in Rome._

It doesn’t take long for the hospital staff to adapt. It isn’t as if he’s frequently on-site and most New Yorkers have seen stranger. 

Except, apparently, the clerk of the fine establishment that he’s reasonably certain is the last known location of Andromeda’s Lance. The magic shop that is the former site of On Top Millinery, packed full of new age books and trinkets, is staffed by a sole woman with teal and lavender braids. She bursts into gales of laughter before the bells above the shop door have stopped tinkling to announce his presence, half bent over the front counter, her braids swinging with every gasp and giggle.

Stephen stands a respectable distance from the register. The Lance is somewhere here. He can hear it humming in the fabric of reality, a sweet note smoothing over the regular din of life, crystalline and bright. The smile on his face is polite, a bit vacant, when he says, “Do I have something on my face?”

Felicity went to school for Library Science last desperate bid for normal and obscure in a family whose favorite bonding activity often involved complex alchemical circles and the type of magical fireworks that had on several occasions in her youth, gotten them citations.

Felicity had a knack as a kid for being something of a finder. Her ability to procure the bizarre, rare or strange was unparalleled... She'd disliked it. School at CUNY had resulted in an unfortunate reputation as something of a miser. She went to music shows, got tattoos, and pretended to be absolutely normal in a family of paranormal. The MBA was only because she thought it might be nice to run a bookstore or something. Instead she paid her way through grad school by procuring artifacts and literary tomes. 

The occult shop makes a great front, turns a tidy profit, and lets her laugh at tourists. Her sometime clients and employers don't often send actual sorcerers to her shop. Email exists for a reason, Felicity isn't big on hand delivering some of the weird shit she lays hands on. 

Andromeda's Lance _talks_ to her though. Like her favorite song, color and smell all rolled into one pretty fountain pen. It's warded in the backroom with her other finds. Some she intends on selling, most she keeps for herself and because regular people should never be trusted with things that sparkle.

The “Master” Sorcerer of New York, has a cape. _A freakin' cape_ , she can be excused for bursting into laughter.

"Nah man; I just figured you'd look a little less like somethin'd crawled up your ass and died." And the cape. She whiffled out another laugh and decided playing dumb would be fun, "I don't sell love potions and if you're here for somethin' authentic to bring to the convention in town, you're outta luck. It's a matter a principle not sellin' to tourists in costume." Despite her years in New York, she had a distinctly Appalachian accent.

“Ah, well, if you know who I am then you can probably guess what I’m here for.” He says it amicably enough, he thinks, considering the situation. (The Cape is ridiculous— God forbid he actually find himself with something on his face or it’ll decide to play mother and helpfully clean him up.) Other items in the shop have joined in on the Lance’s music as well, most of them discordant, fragments of stability for limited magical use rather than long-term unity with the fabric of the universe. Dissolving stitches rather than new growth. It’s sad to feel them reaching for energy and losing even more in the process

She seems smart, this clerk, since she’s running a business in magical artifacts, but unfortunately not enough to lie well, so he adds, “I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t a costume prop. You may have recently acquired an historical artifact from Greece, I believe?”

Felicity wants to play dumb on principle now. If only because he speaks like the sort of educated that makes her irritable.

"Know who y'are?" She arched an eyebrow, "You mean you _ain’t_ some weirdo cosplayer? You sure about that? You got that whole...vibe goin' on." She smiled, "Well I ain't been t'Greece _recently_ , and last I was there I came home with more'n a few baubles, bub. You got documentation for transfer?"

_Documentation_. Of course a mystical order full of sorcerers would also be full of bureaucrats.

“The Andromeda Lance would be a bit more memorable than a souvenir— Tesippus Nassos describes it in _Simeióseis_.” And, is if the thought has only just struck him, “Here,” he produces the text with a handslip into the mirror dimension, aware that the gesture is too much like a carnival magician’s for his own liking. It’s a relatively new copy, only five hundred years old with the vellum in pristine condition and the leather binding supple. The softly glowing sigils on the cover are inlaid in gold. 

He opens it to the page with the Lance in its mundane form— a solid amethyst crystal by the look of it— pictured in fading violet inks, and points carefully without touching. “While I can’t say I’m familiar with the paperwork involved in this kind of transaction, _this_ is what I’m looking for,” he tells her, saying “paperwork” like a churchgoing grandmother might say “nudity”. “Does any item resembling it happen to have come your way lately?”

She almost feels sorry for the guy. Did no one walk him through orientation to this? She sniffs and arches an eyebrow. That's a neat trick, his pocket dimension thing. She leans her elbows on the counter to look at the book.

She has a copy on the shelf behind her. It's in less nice condition, "Oh, you mean the fountain pen that literally won't stop jabberin' at me?"

“It won’t stop _jabbering_ at you? Limited sentience isn’t entirely outside of what these artifacts are capable of--” and here the Cape gives a slightly offended snap. Stephen rolls his eyes and continues-- “although why anyone would hollow out a space-rending tool to make it a fountain pen is beyond me. May I see it?”

She blinked at him, "...that is a horrible hugely dickish way t'talk about magical artifacts. Especially ones capable of writing things into and out of existence." An eyebrow arched, "Also it turns into a pretty kick-awesome light sword. No, you can't see it. You clearly ain't got any sorta respect for it, or I'm guessin' that artifact you're begrudgin'ly wearin'. You wanna see it, come back with the appropriate paperwork and an attitude adjustment an' I might change my mind." She flicked a hand and the shop door swung open. "Go on. Git."

“While I appreciate your astute commentary on my relationship with my Cape, I’d like to remind you that I didn’t ask for it. Likewise, I wasn’t actually _asking_ for the Andromeda Lance. I can see how the nuance might have been lost in our mutual excitement.” He _could_ leave. He could also open a quick hole to pull her shop into the Mirror Dimension and find the Lance the hard way— but that’s _so much work_ . “The Lance is an artifact which, for the safety of the world at large, belongs in the Sanctum Sanctorum until a properly trained sorcerer is chosen to wield it. I’m sure you understand the necessity of keeping such a _kick-awesome_ power out of the hands of civilians.” 

" _No_." There is so much dry sarcasm loaded into that single syllable, she’s impressed with herself. "It was completely lost on me, hence my refusal to let you see it, an' I'll grant I ain't a fancy trained sorcerer like you, but I keep it, and other artifacts like it pretty well-warded."

She actually rolled her eyes at him, "The answer is still no. I'm wholly aware artifacts like it ought be protected, but if you're who they're sendin' around to collect it? I'm a little disappointed, and again, you lack th'appropriate paperwork and attitude. Til then, get th'hell outta my shop."

Louis, her guard lizard, chose that moment to crawl up the side of the counter to flick eyes like tiny galaxies at the man, tongue flicking out in a hiss. "An' you- stoppit,” she scolded, “I can handle the rabble myself without your in'erference."

The lizard’s eyes make Stephen’s hair stand on end. “It’s good to know you’ve got adequate back up in this part of town,” he tells the clerk, mild and pleasant, like this lizard isn’t shifting the fabric of space inward around it. _There’s a reason there are laws about exotic pet ownership_. “It’s unfortunate that we can’t come to an agreement but I do hope you have a wonderful afternoon. Perhaps we can do business together in the future.” He can’t resist giving her half a bow— it’s the Cape’s fault, really— and his card before he turns on his heel and leaves. The card is a bit dated but “neurosurgeon” looks better than “sorcerer” in the professional world.

* * *

The street is bustling. Market day downtown tends to be and if Stephen tries he can pretend the air is clean.

Not many people spare a glance at the bizarre man in a cape stepping into an alley to gesture at the side of a building, a few circling motions to open up a hole in its side, an expansive motion to set the light itself refracting out and away— there but not. Fractals of reality in an infinite funhouse mirror around the shop that holds the Andromeda Lance while the world moves and shifts through the Mirror Dimension without pausing.

The store room of On Top Millinery would be indistinguishable from a scrapyard if it weren’t for the clean floor and distinct lack of smell. It takes a long moment to adjust to the low light and shelves stacked impossibly high with books, crystal balls, rusting medieval weaponry, garden gnomes, vases— every imaginable kind of junk. Stephen feels his blood pressure rise, start his ears ringing.

He takes a deep breath and in that infinite moment reaches to find the order underlying all of it. The structure inherent in every atom, the sense in the orbit of the particles as light passes between them to suggest form, the infinitesimal flash of neurons firing in patterns to assign function to the illusion of form— and there. There was the Andromeda Lance, shoved in the back of a credenza despite its relatively new introduction to the store room. 

Stephen opens his eyes.

The lizard from the front of the shop is on the shelf beside him, its nebula-filled eye unblinking and level with his own. He steps back and the lizard’s eye focuses. It’s here with him, then, stuck in the Mirror Dimension and aware. 

He huffs, “Come here often?” 

He assumes, he _hopes_ , the lizard is blind. It’s clearly prone to wandering.

He makes for the credenza winding through the shelves to find the far corner of the room. It’s no easy task, ducking under the scarves strung above the walkway and sidestepping scabbards and umbrellas sticking out from the shelves. The credenza is filled to the brim with jewelry boxes and on top, the Andromeda Lance, nestled into a box with the sigil of Simeióseis on the lid.

The lizard drops from a shelf onto the top of the credenza, catlike and longer of limb than any iguana has right to be. Stephen springs backwards from kneeling, Lance in hand.

The lizard breathes fire.

He narrowly avoids losing his eyebrows and third degree burns to his face by grace of the Cape. It drags him forcefully backwards, limbs flailing. His body stops just short of starting a junk-shelf avalanche. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

An unholy screeching comes from the lizard.

It’s as good a response as any. 

Stephen dodges another jet of flame, Cape dragging him to balance when he overcorrects and lending just enough extra height to his vaulting over furniture for the exit.

The circular hole in the magic shop’s wall contracts shut behind him. Stephen rolls up out of his dive, panting, clutching the wooden box with the Andromeda Lance inside against his chest. 

“Exotic pets,” he complains, and steps back out of the Mirror and into the world.

* * *

Felicity doesn't notice at first. Louis wanders and just because she never loses things doesn't mean she is always aware when something goes missing… Except the wards in the backroom have been tampered with. It's that same Knowing that leads her to things. Even when the wards appear utterly unchanged, she Knows with surety that they are different-- just as investigating the storeroom yields the same sense of unease.

Louis is nowhere to be found, her connection to her familiar is utterly cut free and it should not be, her panic is completely warranted. Louis is a dragon just past his rebirth. His largest form thus far is roughly the size of a lynx. Or maybe Weimaraner dog. Nothing to sneeze at and remarkably difficult to explain in New York. 

How she missed her connection to her familiar disappearing is what irks her the most. The only logical conclusion then, is to determine what is missing from the storeroom, which leads her to the credenza, it belonged to Harry Houdini, the credenza had, the fountain pen is missing.

The idiot who took it left her his card. Thus, she follows that trail to the bastard’s apartment and, if the steel toed boots she takes to kicking the door with are any indication of her present mood, her wild-eyed appearance does the rest of the job for her.

He stole from her shop and, whatever he did, her familiar is missing and cut off.

* * *

It’s not quite sunrise. 

Stephen’s converted the top floor of the Sanctum into a livable apartment and the sigil-bearing skylight catches the slightest greying of the morning sky. It’s beautiful but not quite as beautiful as the threads of matter and reality that he reaches into to stop his hands’ screaming in their imagined pain. There are no mornings when he wakes without pain but he can master it, to a degree, convince it that it doesn’t exist. Chasing along the electrical currents of the body and silencing the peripheral nerves that insistently fire from fingers to spine to somatosensory cortex because they refuse to habituate to their damage or to heal. 

Even still he thinks he wouldn’t mind the pain if he had a guaranteed _end_ to it.

The Cloak floats in the corner of his room and hesitates to float onto his shoulders when he leverages himself out of bed and straightens the covers taught-- but not _quite_ tight enough to bounce a quarter off of. He turns toward the Cloak of Levitation, “Well?” and the invitation is all that’s required. In private, it serves as a rather comfortable house coat when paired with the single-weave of his pajamas.

In the kitchen there’s a cup of coffee waiting for him. 

Thank God for the modern advent of timed caffeine— sensitive touch screens and small buttons don’t tend to agree with tremors but he’ll endure anything for a decent cup of coffee. He wanders with the oversized mug safe in both hands to watch the sun rise over the Gobi desert. The bay window on the south of this floor is a triptych of portals and he prefers to have them all set to the same place for the sake of continuity. 

“Alright, that’s enough now,” he tells the Cloak, which kindly floats off his shoulders and away. He sets his half-finished coffee aside to straighten into a tree pose. He could hardly call himself a mystic if yoga weren’t part of his daily routine.

Something like an hour later a knock on the door disturbs him, insistent and annoyed judging from the way the sound carries up to his floor, followed by enthusiastic mashing of the door’s buzzer. 

Stephen, is in a delicate agreement with gravity with one palm flat on the floor, the rest of his body balanced on a perfect plane above it. He sighs heavily through his nose. To the empty apartment, he complains, “There is such a thing as being _too_ prompt with deliveries.” 

The grocer doesn’t usually arrive for another forty-five minutes and is probably being mugged on his front step.

It’s _that_ thought that gets him back upright and padding down the stairs as quickly as bare feet and spatial cheating will take him. 

“Keep your shirt on, I’m coming!” 

It takes some doing to unlock the door. Sealing it with magic was useful on the part of the ancients who constructed this place but also … not convenient. He’s met with one winded-looking magical artifact hoarder. He opens his mouth to speak, ask her what she wants, and before he can get a word out— 

She doesn’t quite manage to break his nose. It’s not much consolation.

Stephen conjures a shield a fraction of a second too late and dissipates it just as quickly. Feints left and shoves her into the door-- then pulls her into an arm lock before she can get another strike in for good measure. It’s an overreaction. A trained and practiced one. 

Annoyed, he asks her as politely as he can manage, “What do you want and _why_ did it necessitate you assaulting me on my stoop?” 

"Oh maybe th'fact you broke into my shop, stole somethin' and whatever th'hell you did-- I'm no longer connected to my familiar-" He might have some muscle mass on her- but he isn't wearing shoes. She stomped down onto one of his feet and jerked to elbow him- "Let go of me!"

One of two things will keep her from breaking his toes: shove her back onto the stoop or into the Sanctum. He’s in no position to pay anyone’s hospital bills if a tumble down concrete steps does more than bruise her so into the Sanctum’s foyer it is-- with a hope and a prayer that she doesn't knock over any of the glass-cases displaying priceless magical artifacts like so much museum junk.

He stands in the door and stares at her, still off-balance himself. “Consider yourself let go! I don’t know what— your familiar? The fire-breathing _lizard_?” Of course this is about the lizard. The Cloak still isn’t over being singed, the poor thing, probably traumatized for life. “It’s probably still in the Mirror Dimension and since you’re so capable of handling the arcane mysteries of the universe I’m sure you’ll have no problem retrieving it yourself!” 

At least she isn't outside anymore but that doesn't stop her from being almost six feet of rage. She's never appreciated her height until this moment. Released again she jerked to catch her balance and snarl at him.

" _Louis_ . His name is Louis! He's a dragon! God, you're an actual moron ain't you?" She wants to punch him again. She doesn't but that doesn't stop her from getting up in his space, "Listen asshole, I don't give a shit who you think y'are. There are _rules you have t’follow-_ \- and one of'em is you don't fuck with a witch’s familiar- _\- I can’t access your damn mirror dimension_ . My 'magic' is findin' things. So unless you want me t'break your ugly face in. You bring back my familiar an' _maybe_ I don't have you arrested for breaking and entering, and burglary!"

“First: I didn’t know he was your familiar or that “witches” existed! Second: maybe, just maybe, you might consider that you can’t prove I walked through walls to get into your shop and have no evidence that I have anything of yours and therefore don’t have a case against me. Third: I don’t doubt the surveillance across the street caught footage of your assaulting me on my front step for no apparent reason, so I wouldn’t be so quick to throw around threats of arrest if I were you.”

"Wow-- they really didn't brief you at all. Did they?" She's staring at him like he’s an idiot. He is, she decides and has to say it out loud for posterity: "You're an idiot. You can't just waltz into someone's shop an' take shit. Didjoo think I was bein' difficult sayin' you needed actual paperwork t'prove transfer?" She shakes her head, "I'm a Finder? You fuckin' moron, my job is t'track, document, and secure artifacts. It is literally my job t'keep them outta unsafe hands. D'you know how many wards you compromised fuckin' with them? You might be th' sorceror of New York, but that doesn't mean you ain't beholden to th'freakin' rules. So you can start by returnin' the Lance, _and_ my fucking familiar." 

Cloak has floated down the central staircase into the foyer to investigate the shouting and hovers menacingly in the interloper’s direction. 

“No,” Stephen tells it like he’s talking to a child, “Leave her alone. She’s allowed to be pissed off whether we agree with her or not. Come here.” Cloak settles itself onto his shoulders and Stephen imagines it’s a little put out at not having the chance to show off. He raises a hand to rub at his temples. The tremor, he finds, gets worse with tension. For all the cause is physical his body is still subject to his mind in all of the frustrating ways.

“Let’s try this: Hello, I’m Doctor Strange. I apologize for stealing from you— it was a necessary function of my newly-appointed duties. I did not intend to do your familiar harm, just to avoid being set on fire. What can I do for you, _Ms_. …?” 

She's so angry she can't see straight and the lowgrade panic she's experiencing is either because she's still disconnected from her familiar, or rage that someone put this uneducated buffoon in charge without bothering to apprise him of how things worked beyond saving the freaking world or something.

"My name is Felicity Vargas, now bring back my fucking familiar."

He’s more than happy to return the condescending stare. “How you managed to miss the destruction of two Sanctums and the death of Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme is surprising, considering that you’re meant to work with the Sorcerer Supreme and the rest of us, is beyond me. Did you also overlook the catastrophe during which Hong Kong was nearly engulfed in the Dark Dimension, Ms. Vargas?” 

It’s not quite a fair thing to ask, since his own alteration of the fabric of time itself means that _technically_ Hong Kong had never been in danger in the first place— but if she was paying attention, if she is what she says she is, she’d have noticed something.

"Oh, I noticed," she sneers, "But you seem to think I care at all about your involvement in it, and considerin' Hong Kong is still around, it must not've been in too much danger."

He turns and with a gesture pulls them both into the Mirror Dimension, the geometry of it building itself into the space around the foyer. The kaleidoscope of reality sings beautifully in the back of his mind, the center of its mandalas an omnipresent gravity against which to orient himself. Another movement splits and divides the space of the foyer endlessly out through itself and brings On Top Millinery closer until they’re standing in the Mirror Dimension of it’s store room. 

“I’m sure your pet is in here somewhere.”

Felicity is not...used to dimensional travel. Her family deals with that stuff, Felicity likes her rules and regulations and books. She fights the feeling of vertigo.

No sooner have the words slid from Strange's mouth than there is an echoing roar that shakes even Felicity to her bones and Louis is crawling out of the space between atoms to separate her from Strange. Louis has also grown substantially in size and wingspan.

"He isn't a pet."

Louis echoes the sentiment telepathically, like the sound of a dozen cathedral bells tolling not ten feet away.

Stephen stares. The lizard has turned into a dragon. What the hell does this woman feed it? 

“He’s probably considered an “exotic” since I don't imagine City Ordinance has a class for familiar. You should rename him Smaug if he keeps going at this rate,” he says at the lizard. _Dragon_. “How handsome are you, Louis?” He means the compliment. Iguanas are a bit weird but the draconic evolution the lizard has undergone is striking— there’s something to be said for the brilliant, crystalline quality of his scales. 

“Well, I’m glad you two are reunited.” 

Transporting the three of them back to the foyer of the Sanctum goes just as quickly as getting to the store room had. He gestures to the open front door, “I hope you have a lovely morning. If you’re hungry there’s a cafe two blocks west of here that has amazing scones.” 

Louis is as cranky as his human is, his scales shift in color from pearlescent to ruby and back and he snorts a puff of smoke at him, irate. 

Felicity has a hand on his head and a heavy sigh on her mouth, back in the Sanctum foyer she levels Strange with a look, "No. you're gonna siddown, shut up and absorb a coupla necessary regulations and rules if you wanna keep operating in New York without pissing people off."

“Unfortunately there’s nowhere to sit on this floor. Thank you for your kind offer but I hope you can understand that I’m incredibly busy at the moment. Call the number on my card and my secretary can probably pencil you in.” 

"Oh, what a tragedy, we'll have to go to a different floor then. Or, if y'like I can come back here every single day, makin' a ruckus. Show up at your day job, make your extracurricular activities more difficult. I'm a Finder. You really think you're the only person I deal with?" 

She snorts, "Your problem is your ego. I dunno what you did in a previous life, but can that arrogance because it ain't gettin' you anywhere in this one. No one in _our_ community gives a shit you used to be a surgeon. You ain't one in this life, an' s'far as I'm concerned, and you ain't done a damn thing to earn any sorta respect. Savin' the world notwithstanding. And really, thanks for that," she gave him the okay sign with one hand-- "But newsflash, you're in charge of a helluva lot more'n a coupla socialites who need botox, bub. So sit down, or you're gonna figure out why it is my familiar is a dragon."

Stephen blinks at her, utterly unimpressed. Nothing she’s saying is necessarily _news_ to him, just much harsher echoes of the Ancient One’s last lesson: _It isn’t about you_. A concept he thought he’d picked up fairly quickly when Dormammu’s zealots decided to hand Earth over to the Eater of Worlds-- the prevention of which involved _infinite deaths in a time loop_. 

He was capable of a few grains of humility now and again. 

“Leave my home, Ms. Vargas, or I’ll call the police.” Or stick her and Louis the Oversized Lizard back in the Mirror Dimension— a breach of ethics that he would never _actually_ commit but fantasizing is harmless.

Felicity arches an eyebrow, utterly unimpressed, they've reached some sort of stalemate. Neither willing to budge an iota and neither capable of admitting defeat.

She sniffed and Louis rumbled irately, intent clear in the flicker of multitudinous eyes. 

"You might, but I'd remind you that there are still people to whom _you_ must answer. An' while it's easy enough for you t'write _me_ off, you'll find those people more difficult." She hummed, "Louis, we cain't walk New York with you lookin' inches from sproutin' wings."

Louis heaved a put upon sound and his scaled rippled, body shrinking back to his iguana shape, Felicity plucked him up into her arms. "Make your decision, Strange. I'd suggest makin' it quick, the council ain't fond of sorcerers outta control." And with that she stepped out of the Sanctum and kicked the door shut behind her.

Locking the door behind Felicity Vargas and her Oversized Lizard is the biggest relief he’s ever experienced. He rests his forehead against the door, trying to locate the origin of his sense of imbalance and the tension along his left side clues him in— he hadn’t finished his yoga routine.

He shrugs Cloak from his shoulders and mounts the stairs to even himself out.

* * *

Felicity does feel bad about punching him. Not everyone acquires familiars. It's something of an unusual thing, since familiars are meant to embody the internal magical essence of a magical practitioner of only certain bloodlines. Why Felicity has one, and why rather than Louis being a physical manifestation of her metaphysical self and instead is an actual freaking dragon, is something her own mothers couldn’t figure out.

Instead she pens Dr. Strange a short note, a genuine apology for punching him, and a brief explanation that Louis and she are connected metaphysically and having had that bind severed even briefly, was dangerous not only to she, but to Louis' continued existence. Since dragons did not often tether themselves magically to mortals.

She also includes a book. It’s nothing fancy, just an introductory manual, outlining how he can contact other Finders, as well as other members of the council with questions.

And finally, she attaches an all-natural dark chocolate bar to the note and sends it off. 

If he accepts the apology note or not, is out of her hands.

* * *

Even the infamous Doctor Strange can’t stay obstinate in the face of a new book. Admittedly, it’s an administrative manual rather than anything _interesting_ , but he’ll take what he can get. There is a general trend he’s noticed over the last several years, of discovering time and again that when he thinks he’s figured out what needs to be known, he discovers that in fact he doesn’t know jack shit.

Talk about annoying.

His reply to her is short because his patience for dictation software is limited and he sends it off not two days later through the same ethereal messaging system Finders, according to the book, prefer. It’s the kind of magic he’d expect, with glyphs drawn rather than visualized into being. Tangible. Physical. It takes a lot of practice to get the lines just right but thankfully the mistakes don't summon anything monstrous to this plane.

_Felicity,_

_Thank you for both the apology and the gift. I’ve committed the book to memory and the chocolate is delicious._

_I didn’t realize that I was putting Louis in harm in my rush to escape his wrath. Please pass on an apology to him— neither of you deserved that kind of duress._

_Would you care to discuss the question of the Andromeda Lance further? I obviously skipped a few steps in acquiring it. Name the time and place._

_Dr. Strange_

Felicity receives a response within forty-eight hours. Honestly it's a much nicer response than she anticipated. She's glad to know he's read the book. And feels some remorse. Louis reads over her shoulder. Harrumphs in that way he does before trotting off to count his hoard or something.

She replies to Strange:

_Sir,_

_I consider myself something of a chocolate connoisseur._

_There is a bistro which serves the most delightful Italian. I'd be happy to treat you and bring along some recommendations for secretaries who might assist in the day to day paperwork._

_Regards,_

_Felicity Vargas_

Her response is strangely formal and he wants to correct her— he’s a “Doctor”, nothing less, nothing more. But there’s something about the prospect of an actual secretary that speaks to him. It was a wonderful thing, not having to deal with paperwork beyond signing it at the end of the day (although all of his patients’ charts had a history of being immaculate and well-written).

_Felicity,_

_How's noon this coming Thursday?_

_Dr. Strange_

  
  



End file.
